Difference between revisions of "Vrtičkarstvo (Slovenia)"

|style="font-size:1.1em;"| In Slovenian cities, ''vrtičkarstvo'' is the practice of establishing and maintaining household garden plots, detached from the main place of residence. ''Vrtički'' (singular ''vrtiček''), meaning small gardens, are tended by residents of housing-estates or lodgers in urban family homes. ''Vrtičkarji'' (singular ''vrtičkar'', female ''vrtičkarica'', ''vrtičkarka'') do not have regular access to farmland or a second home and either formally rent or informally take over a plot of land. Surveys suggest that 5 percent of all Ljubljanans (residents of Slovenian capital) keep an urban plot (Jamnik et al. 2009). Gardeners cultivate land of 50 to 500 square meters, temporarily or long-term, as formal members of an association or through an informal agreement with fellow gardeners. The diminutive term ''vrtiček'' (compare with ''vrt'' for garden, and ''vrtnar, vrtnarica'' for gardener) implies an amateur or inconsequential nature of the practice. Such a name, however, disguises its vital social role.

In contrast to the out-of-town Russian ''dachas'' used as second homes, hundreds of small and dispersed vegetable ''vrtički'' sites can be found within walking distance of housing estates in both the inner city and the outskirts of Ljubljana. The geographic and environmental protection regimes have curbed the rate of urbanisation in Ljubljana and kept farmland within reach of residential zones. In contrast to allotments or ''Schrebergärten, vrtički'' are less likely to be organised by a formally recognised institution. ''Vrtičkarji'' most often cultivate land on the basis of an oral or assumed owner’s consent (Jamnik et al. 2009).

Academic approaches to urban gardening and urban policies rarely see eye to eye. Researchers understand the practice as an indicator of broader trends and social issues, yet tend to disregard the multipurpose nature of urban gardening. Narrow comparative analyses of local forms often fail to capture the social role of the practice. To illustrate, Alber and Kohler conclude, on the basis of the reported harvest-size alone, that the more productive gardeners in Eastern Europe grow vegetables out of poverty, while their Western European counterparts cultivate gardens as a hobby (2008). While surveys and (historical) aerial photography (Jamnik et al. 2009) are valuable for assessing the spread of the practice, figuring out the particular urban problems to which the practice responds is best achieved with (auto-)ethnography and life histories (Caldwell 2011; Smith and Jehlička 2013; Matijevic 2018). In contrast, local governments are more likely to treat urban gardening either as a problem in itself, or as a publicly-administered panacea that can ameliorate any formal deficiency. What such approaches have in common is that they overlook the ambivalence of urban gardening – it is as much an urban problem as it is a solution. The challenge for policy, then, is to recognise urban gardening as a shadow companion to urbanisation and modernity and thus as a factor to include in formal policy-thinking.